Afghan war is 'waste of blood and treasure,' says ex-British envoy to US

Former British envoy to Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer, who played a pivotal role in dispatching the troops to Afghanistan, now thinks that the war in Afghanistan is "a waste of blood and treasure".

"The poor, bloody infantry can win a thousand firefights in Helmand province, and earnest officials from the Department for International Development can make plans for a bridge here, a dam there; but until these efforts are linked to a political process, underpinned by diplomacy, they are so much waste of blood and treasure," Meyer wrote in his book.

"If this madcap venture is to take 40 years, as General Sir David Richards, chief of the general staff, averred this year, no conceivable national interest can be served by such an eccentric concentration of resources on a country of marginal importance," he added.

Meyer, who was Tony Blair's man in America from 1997 to 2003, writes that British and American governments are not clear about their objectives in Afghanistan.

"After nearly eight years in Afghanistan there is still no clarity about why we are there. Is it to stop Al-Qaeda returning on the shirt-tails of the Taliban? Or are we trying to create the conditions to transform Afghan governance and society? Depending on who you speak to - British or American - it is either, both, or something in the middle," Times Online quoted, him, as saying.

Meyer adds: "A punitive expedition against Al-Qaeda is one thing; but to seek, against the grain of history, to rebuild Afghanistan from the ground up, in the name of a western concept of democracy and human rights, is futile. (ANI)

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